Eee Pad Slider debuts in the United States

It's here at last. Heralded by a promo page on Asus' website yesterday, the newfangled tablet-with-a-keyboard thingamajig has started sneaking onto Amazon, Newegg, and some other e-tailers. The cheapest variant, which packs 16GB of built-in flash storage, will set you back $479 at Newegg. You can apparently expect to pay $579 for the 32GB model.

The Eee Pad Slider looks rather unique externally, thanks to a sliding design that reveals a physical QWERTY keyboard. On paper, though, the device has much in common with the cheaper and somewhat more conventional Eee Pad Transformer. A 10.1" display with a 1280x800 resolution conceals a Tegra 2 applications processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, and Android software (3.2 on the Slider). Battery capacities are almost identical on the two devices: 24.4Wh for the Transformer and 25Wh for the Slider. However, at 2.11 lbs, the Slider is quite a bit heavier than its keyboard-less sibling.

You'll find a spec sheet and more details on the promo page, which also houses this rather artsy promotional video:

The Eee Pad Slider must have a secret life filling in for Bill Murray—a tough act to follow.

In my view, devices like the Slider are good examples of why proclamations about a post-PC era fall a little flat. Is this a convertible laptop or a tablet? Does the operating system dictate nomenclature? And if so, what do you call Chromebooks? I think Asus, Apple, and others are broadening the definition of what a personal computer is, not making the PC obsolete.